Again this year, Bay Area News Group readers took us along on their summer vacations by participating in our Road Trip Scavenger Hunt — and it’s pretty apparent they all had a great time, as you’ll see when you scroll through the dozens of photos we’ve posted online.

From Tahoe to Thailand, families and other groups of travelers hammed it up, made friends of complete strangers and kept their eyes peeled for unusual architecture, flora and fauna, all while taking photographs of the 20 items on our must-find list.

A total of 59 teams submitted entries — about a third of last year’s number — and we’re afraid that many would-be participants had trouble with what was clearly the most difficult challenge: a picture of a police officer eating. For that we apologize! We honestly intended to make the competition a bit more fierce, not create international incidents or put you face-to-face with officers who were reluctant to be photographed at all, much less be photographed while on a lunch, dinner or snack break.

“This had to be the most elusive shot of the entire trip,” wrote James Thomas, of San Rafael, “as the police in Europe seem to be extremely averse to having their picture taken at all. We attempted several pictures, only to be told in no uncertain terms that we could not take the picture. We finally came across this policeman grabbing a quick snack in a doorway in Venice who luckily did not spot us!”

Those who did manage to take photos of officers came up with some real charmers. (See the Kyle Moe photo above.) And the Best Road Trippers team of “Buzz and the Baltic Babes” displayed some gutsiness when getting their shot in St. Petersburg.

Also challenging to find were photos of bumper stickers. Those, it seems, have gone the way of the pay telephone. (Luckily, in another challenge, we asked you to find abandoned pay phones. The world has plenty of those.)

There was clearly no shortage of opportunities to “photobomb” or elbow in on other travelers’ pictures. Those are some of the funniest shots in the competition, and we hope our participants jotted down some email addresses so they can share photos with their impromptu friends.

As for asking you to photograph a neon sign at night: Who knew so many of you would vacation in northern destinations where the sun doesn’t set until late? Sorry about the missed sleep. But it was worth it, wasn’t it?

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